The Tools That Should Be In Your Maintainer’s Toolboxes

Look in any aircraft maintainer’s toolbox and you’re sure to find a few items that aren’t offered in any aviation supply catalog. You’ll probably find a sharpened putty knife, scribe, or utility blade that the maintainer uses to remove gap materials, sealants and adhesives from aircraft substrates and fasteners.

While these items may offer a short-term solution, there are two basic problems with these items.  One, they simply don’t work very well and require a lot of muscle (and time) to use. The second is that the ones made of metal greatly increase the risk of damaging many aircraft substrates.

What aircraft mechanics need for these jobs are tools that are hard enough to hold an edge and that can be re-sharpened readily, but which won’t damage the underlying surface. That’s why Performance Plastics partnered with high-performance polymer supplier Solvay Specialty Polymers, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Systems Support Division (AFRL/RXS) and the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) to develop the EnduroSharp® line of aircraft maintenance tools.

EnduroSharp™ aircraft maintenance tools are expertly designed and molded from a high-performance polymer, Torlon® polyamide-imide (PAI) resin. These tools prevent the kind of damage to metallic and nonmetallic components or substrates that improvised metal tools can cause.

EnduroSharp tools are approved for use on USAF, USMC, USN and other foreign military aerospace systems. They are well suited for removing elastomeric coatings, boots, tapes, sealants, adhesives, gap fillers and tape residue from fiber-reinforced composite, plastic, glass, ceramic or metal substrates and fasteners. To remove material faster, the blades can also be used with heat- or chemical-assisted skiving processes, in which materials are carefully removed one thin layer at a time.

For more information and to see our EnduroSharp® tools in action, please visit the EnduroSharp section of our website or watch our demo EnduroSharp Demo on YouTube.